The Fleet Street Murders (22 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

F

or a long time Lady Jane had known that Lenox felt a personal distaste for her old suitor, George Barnard, but hoping to protect her he had never
quite
confided in her his suspicions about the man, though she had seemed perhaps to perceive them.

Similarly, when he visited her that evening she could sense something was wrong. To make matters worse, now that the sheer relief of once again being together was gone, there remained the awkwardness of their London-Stirrington correspondence.

She was at his house now, where they were eating supper together.

“Shall you try for a different seat soon, Charles, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s still alluring to me, the idea of Parliament, but there are other men in line to try for open seats, I fear.”

“Clearly they should make you a lord and have done with it.”

Lenox laughed. “Clearly.”

There was a pause, during which each took a sip of wine. He didn’t know what she might be thinking, but in his own brain stirred the uneasy thought that in fact a lord or at least an MP would be more fitting for Jane, who was such a woman of the world, who knew so intimately all the mores of that little cadre in which politics and society mingled and became one.

Her thoughts were elsewhere, however. She looked at him rather strangely.

“Have I got sauce on my chin?” asked Lenox with a smile.

“No, no,” she said, smiling back. “Only, I had an idea.”

“What?”

“Our houses—what do you think we should do after we’re married?”

It pleased him that she spoke of their marriage so practically. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Mine is a bit bigger, but yours is warmer in the winter.”

“I should hate to give up my morning room, and you your library,” she said.

“Well—compromise is a necessity, I suppose,” he said, feeling uneasily that she was about to suggest they live separately. It was a very faint agony, love. He thought of that old line:
Ever till now/When men were fond, I smil’d, and wonder’d how
.

She put his mind at ease, however, with her proposition. “What I thought was—well, that we might join our two houses together, Charles.”

“Physically? Knock down the walls?”

“Yes, exactly—or at least, one wall in each floor. We wouldn’t want to knock down the wall between your library and that coat-room I have, but—for instance—we could make a very large bedroom on the second floor?”

Lenox smiled. “I think it’s a wonderful idea,” he said. “It will be a union of minds and a union of houses, eh?”

Jane laughed, and they spent the rest of supper excitedly talking about their new plans.

It was a respite to see his betrothed, but by the next morning his mind was again fixed on George Barnard. He decided to go see Jenkins at Scotland Yard and have a talk with him about it all.

Jenkins would be the third person Lenox took into his confidence on the subject of George Barnard, after McConnell and Dallington, when previously only he and Graham had known. Part of him doubted the wisdom of this, but another part of him was glad that he could unburden himself of this obsession that had so weighed on his spirit.

He sent back word for Jenkins through the long corridors of Scotland Yard, and soon the young inspector came to fetch him.

“How is the mood here?” asked Lenox. “About Exeter?”

“Nine parts frantic for every part sad. Everyone down to the lad selling newspapers is half mad trying to figure it out. It’s an intolerable state of affairs—doing more harm than good, I reckon. Speaking of which, did you visit Carruthers’s rooms, as we discussed?”

“Yes, I did, as a matter of fact. It’s why I came to speak to you.”

“Oh?”

Lenox then explained the entire convoluted history of his suspicion of Barnard; he tried to be concise and complete but found himself rambling slightly. He could see the doubt on his interlocutor’s face.

Jenkins sighed heavily when Lenox had finished. “George Barnard?” he said at length, rather quizzically. “Why are you telling me this theory?”

“At some moment, now or in the future, I may ask you to arrest him. I hope that you’ll do so without hesitation and let the explanations come after. Our window of opportunity may be small indeed, when we find it.”

“He’s a public figure, Lenox.”

“So was Attila the Hun.”

Jenkins laughed. “You’ve rarely led me astray, of course, but—well, here’s one thing—why Smalls? We’ve got such a plausible link between Smalls and Poole. Doesn’t it seem more likely that it was a straight transaction between them than . . . well, than what?”

“After all, don’t you see—it would have been so foolish for Poole to kill both Carruthers and Pierce, two men who were eternally linked by nothing except his father!”

“That does strike me as your most probable argument,” said Jenkins, “but then why would Smalls willingly kill Simon Pierce?”

Here was a question that he could answer, thankfully. “The Hammer Gang,” he said. “As I said, they’re linked to Barnard. It was to frame Poole.”

“Smalls hadn’t a Hammer Gang tattoo, I’m sure of that. The hammer above the eyebrow—ugly thing.”

“I think Barnard may have recruited somebody new to the gang, in an effort to be particularly careful. Smalls didn’t have a tattoo”—here Lenox paused to explain the words
No green
—“and he was ultimately disposable.”

“Who do you think killed him?”

Lenox shrugged. “At any time there are half a dozen of the Hammers floating in and out of Newgate—one of them would have done it, I imagine.”

“Very tidily, too,” said Jenkins skeptically.

“I’m sure the idea was Barnard’s. If only we could find his liaison within the gang—for it’s surely impossible that he knows more than one or two of them.”

“Smalls, then? Just did it for money? Or to be initiated?”

“Both, to be sure. There was something else as well.”

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Smalls told me that she was only months away from debtors’ prison. A hundred-pound debt, which she could never have paid, and Hiram wiped it clear in one moment. That’s what she said. Barnard must have used Smalls’s mother as leverage over the man.”

“Yes,” said Jenkins thoughtfully.

“Hence the cryptic clues—the note, the stack of coins,” said Lenox. “If he came right out and said anything that might save his skin, his mother would go straight to prison. The clues were a kind of insurance.”

“It hangs together, I suppose,” said Jenkins, “but most importantly, Lenox, I don’t understand what Barnard’s
motive
for all this mayhem might have been.”

Lenox had been afraid of having to address this. “I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. In general I believe it’s because Barnard’s whole criminal career was somehow in danger of being exposed. I think Carruthers may have been blackmailing Barnard. He wrote an article about the Mint, which I just read again—it doesn’t contain any revelations, but Carruthers might have found something.”

Jenkins looked skeptical. “That’s all? What about Exeter? Pierce?”

“Pierce was cover, I told you, a red herring. Carruthers was the true target.”

“If only there was any proof beyond your word.”

Lenox pulled his valise onto his lap. “Here are the newspaper articles Carruthers kept about G. Farmer. Read over them?”

“Certainly.”

“Look, more importantly,” he said, handing the younger man a sheet of paper, “here’s the dossier I put together.”

Jenkins studied it. Halfway down the page, he said in a quiet sort of yelp, “My God! Half of the unsolved crimes in our files are on this sheet of paper!”

“I know.”

“He must be ungodly rich.”

“You were at his house, before Exeter replaced you on that case,” said Lenox.

Jenkins looked up sharply. “There’s the question, I suppose. Why did he kill Exeter?”

Ruefully Lenox shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

T

he case went slowly, very slowly indeed; for two days nothing happened. Lenox passed his hours not in any traditional pursuit of George Barnard but by sitting in the British Library’s Reading Room and going back through old newspapers, reading every article he could find by Winston Carruthers. It was dry work indeed, and worse still it was unproductive. Eventually he gave up.

On the afternoon of the second day he was sitting in his library at home, having a cup of tea and a sandwich, when Dallington arrived at the front door. Graham showed him in.

“I’ve some news,” the young aristocrat said, his face lined with fatigue but also bright with excitement. “It’s about Barnard.”

The butler started for the door.

“Stay, Graham,” said Lenox. “Do you mind?” he asked the lad.

“No—at least—no,” said Dallington, slightly puzzled.

“Graham is my oldest comrade in arms against George Barnard, as I mentioned to you once before.”

“Of course, then.”

“What have you discovered?” asked Lenox.

“Barnard has been emptying his bank accounts.”

There was a moment of silence. “How could you possibly have discovered that?” Lenox asked.

“I went to the banks and looked at Barnard’s accounts, of course.”

Lenox laughed. “How?” he asked.

“I went in to look at my accounts and tipped the teller a few pounds to bring me Barnard’s papers as well as my own. It seems he emptied the two accounts I saw of all his ready money—several hundred pounds—although his investments still deposit there.”

“The banker wasn’t reluctant to do that, sir?” Graham asked with some astonishment.

“What? Oh, I see what you mean!” Dallington laughed heartily, still pacing the room. “No, you don’t understand, I’m afraid.”

“What don’t we understand? It seems profoundly unlikely,” said Lenox. “Banks aren’t known for their accessibility.”

Dallington laughed again. “You must understand—for years I’ve been poaching out of my parents’ accounts. Since I was thirteen or so. I know all the most corrupt men at the bank.”

“You amaze me, John!”

Dallington waved a hand. “Nothing too heavy—a quid here or there, you know.”

“I see.” Lenox couldn’t help but smile. “So, then, you knew which man to visit?”

“Yes! I only thought of it this morning. I told them it was fearfully important and acted very hushed and secretive, and you know they like to pal around with a duke’s son.”

“I can’t help but disapprove,” Lenox said, but still with a smile on his face. “At any rate, it was well done.”

Quietly Graham said, “That must mean Mr. Barnard has fled to Geneva for good.”

“Yes, perhaps,” said Lenox, now furrowing his brow, “and perhaps it means he felt some imminent danger. From Winston Carruthers, from Hiram Smalls, from Exeter. Graham, do something for me, would you?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Go to Barnard’s house in Grosvenor Square and see what’s happening there, whether the servants have remained, whether the upper floors are shut. It’s such a massive place that if he’s really left it for good they may still be in the middle of closing it.”

“Very good, sir. The usual method?”

Graham had a tenderly cultivated skill for quick friendship with fellow servants. Lenox had often asked him to employ it on a case’s behalf. “Yes, precisely,” said the detective.

Graham left, and Dallington and Lenox sat silent for some time, Lenox staring into the fire and contemplating Barnard’s actions.

Suddenly Dallington burst into speech. “Listen, Lenox—I want to apologize. I came to you in the absolute certainty that my friend—my acquaintance, whom if I acknowledge it I only knew briefly—was innocent, and I was wrong.”

Lenox waved a dismissive hand. “You’re young,” he said. “There are many lessons before you, some harder than this one.”

“I doubt that.”

“Well, perhaps not. I think in our first case together you had such great success—in fact, saved my life—that it must have seemed easy to you. All too often things are blurry, though, John. It’s the way of the world. Humans are blurry creatures,” said Lenox. “Now—did you learn anything else at all about Barnard’s last few weeks?”

With a discouraged scowl, Dallington shook his head. “Not much. He was as upright as a parson the whole time. In his house, at his club, at his office—”

“Office?”

“In the Mint. He kept an office after he left—insisted on it, to smooth the transition to the next fellow, he said.”

“Did he see anybody?”

“Not to speak of. He had been to one or two parties.”

“He went to Geneva without any notice?”

“Yes, apparently—or on short notice. Announced he would go in the morning and left a few hours later.”

There was a noise at the door then, followed by footsteps in the hallway. Dallington and Lenox exchanged a look, then stared at the closed library door, waiting for it to open.

“Where is Mary?” said Lenox irritably after a moment had passed.

Dallington stood up and peeked out of the door.

“Good God, there’s a chap in your hallway who looks as if he might eat glass for a lark,” said the young lord in an urgent whisper. “Head like a walnut.”

Lenox laughed and stood up. “That must be Skaggs.”

“Who the devil is Skaggs?”

“You’ll see. Very useful chap, quite intelligent.” Lenox went to the door and called out, “You must come into the library, Mr. Skaggs! Would you like a cup of tea? This is John Dallington, by the way.”

“Something stronger wouldn’t go amiss,” said Skaggs, shaking hands with Dallington and Lenox. “Been cold.”

“How about a glass of brandy?”

Skaggs nodded approvingly.

“Do you have any news?” Lenox asked, walking to the sideboard where he kept his liquor. “It seems to us that Barnard has been acting strangely. John, I hired Mr. Skaggs to trail George Barnard to Geneva.”

“Nothing strange at all,” said Skaggs, accepting a glass of brandy and sitting. “Well, except one thing.”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Barnard never went to Geneva.”

“What!” said Dallington.

“No. In fact, I very much doubt he left London,” said the investigator, a small, triumphant smile on his face.

“How did you draw these conclusions?” asked Lenox.

“It was simple enough to check on his travel out of the country. There’s no doubt that he left by his own carriage for Felixstowe, from which he was to take a ferry south, but he wasn’t on any of the company’s passenger lists, and nobody who took a first class cabin answered to his description. He hadn’t hired a boat privately, either, according to the local operators.”

“He might have done any of these things under a false name, however,” said Dallington.

Lenox shook his head. “Why? He spread it far and wide that he was going to Geneva. No reason to cover his trail, was there?”

“Moreover, I wired to Geneva—I haven’t had to go, because there was plenty of evidence on these shores—and he never arrived at the conference he was meant to attend,” Skaggs said.

“He might have gone anywhere on the Continent.”

“If he had left Felixstowe,” said Skaggs. “He might have gone to another port, though again, why go to the trouble of doing that? No, I firmly believe he never left England. Or London, for that matter. I think he took his carriage to the edge of town, so that everyone could see he had left, turned around, and came home with the curtains drawn over the windows. Even at night, perhaps.”

“Surely he’s in the countryside, then?” asked Dallington.

“London,” said Skaggs stubbornly.

“Why don’t you believe he left the city?”

Skaggs smiled. “Horseshoes.”

“What do you mean?” Lenox asked.

“I visited his stables. His horses’ shoes haven’t been changed for two weeks, I discovered in the course of an idle chat with the groom, and when I picked up one of their hooves there was practically no wear on the shoe. They haven’t traveled more than a few miles, I’d reckon.”

“Wonderfully done,” said Lenox, smiling.

Rather dismally, Dallington said, “I’ve much to learn, I see.”

“Why would he have pretended to leave town?” asked Lenox thoughtfully.

After half an hour or so in which the three men discussed the subject, Skaggs left, gracefully accepting Lenox’s compliments, and shortly thereafter Graham returned from Barnard’s nearby house, flushed red with the cold.

“Well?” Lenox asked.

“It’s completely dark, sir, the house. Only two maids are there, who will stay until the new tenant arrives.”

“New tenant?”

“Ah—the most consequential part of it, sir—Mr. Barnard has sold his house. The staff understood that he was retiring permanently to the country and have been telling all visitors as much. They have been packing his things for the past several days.”

The idea of Barnard living outside of London was laughable—it was his home and his solace, the center of his spiderweb, and he despised the northern life he had sloughed off when he came to the metropolis to make a success of himself.

Why, then, between Geneva and the country, was he trying so hard to persuade everybody that he was gone forever?

The three men sat and discussed it for some time before finally agreeing that they would reconvene in the morning. Lenox felt discouraged; it all seemed so opaque.

Then, in the middle of the night, long after Dallington’s departure, Lenox woke out of a dream and sat bolt upright.

Suddenly he understood it all.

Barnard had insisted on keeping an office in the Mint,
according to Dallingon, but why would he have wanted to, unless—

“Of course,” said the detective softly. “It’s the only reason he took the job in the first place, I’d wager. The cunning fox.”

He stood up and hurriedly began to throw on clothes, in the absolute certainty that even at that moment, George Barnard was somewhere amid the wide corridors and large offices of the Royal Mint—

Robbing it.